The broad objective of this research program is to identify adolescents at risk for mental and physical health problems as a result of adverse family environmental factors. The specific aims of this particular program are twofold: to identify family factors that explain individual differences in adolescents' physiological responses to stressful events and determine whether individual differences in adolescents' physiological responses account for variability in mental and physical health outcomes. This specific proposal will examine the role of marital conflict exposure, parent-adolescent relationship quality, and adolescent conflict appraisals in predicting adolescents' physiological responses and health. These relations will be examined at the end of adolescence, a developmental period that has been neglected in the relevant literatures. In order to achieve these goals, a multimethod, follow-up study of families who previously participated in one site of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development will be conducted. Parent and adolescent report, observer ratings of marital conflict, adolescent participation in two stressors, assessment of Cortisol and blood pressure, and longitudinal data on the frequency, intensity, and resolution of marital conflict will be utilized. Adolescents and both parents will complete at-home visits when adolescents are 17 to assure that they are still living at home and have not yet transitioned to college. During this visit, parents and/or adolescents will report on marital conflict, parent-adolescent relationships, and adolescent conflict appraisals, as well as adolescent physical health, externalizing, and internalizing problems. Also during this visit, adolescents will be exposed to a conflict-specific stressor (viewing a movie clip portraying marital conflict), and a non-conflict-specific stressor (Trier Social Stress Task). Cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity and recovery will be assessed. Parents will participate in a conflict discussion, which will be videotaped and later coded for specific conflict behaviors that have been linked with negative outcomes for children. This project has the potential to (a) advance understanding of why marital conflict has widespread negative consequences for children, and identify specific factors in adolescents and their family environments that put some at greater risk for health problems (b) expose the underlying psychosocial and physiological mechanisms in the association between marital conflict and negative health outcomes (c) inform interventions by suggesting behaviors and levels that will be most effective to target to reduce health and adjustment problems in youth; this is of critical importance as those who suffer from physical and mental health problems in adolescence are likely to suffer similar problems in adulthood.